Andreas Wellinger jumped on the podium for the first time on the second World Cup weekend and is already in top form at the beginning of the Olympic winter. The 22-year-old finished third in the surprise victory of the Slovenian Jernej Damjan on Sunday in Kuusamo, Finland.
Markus Eisenbichler in fifth, Richard Freitag in sixth and Stephan Leyhe in ninth place provided further top results.
“I’ve struggled from leap to leap here. The fact that it’s all going to end now is the hammer,”said Wellinger on ARD television:”I knew that I could do it, but I just didn’t get it across so far. I can now take away the feeling that I’ve gotten back on track.”
Wellinger, who finished among the top three in the last 15 jumps of the past season twelve times, jumped twice 140.0 m (293.0 points) on the Rukatunturi hill and managed to make it onto the podium after finishing fifth in the first half. After Damjan (301.4), who celebrated his second World Cup victory after Sapporo in January 2014, the Norwegian Daniel-Andre Tande (298.6) finished second.
The DSV eagles, who had finished second in the team competition on Saturday behind the superior Norwegians, convinced the Polar Circle with a team-like performance and finished in the 18th place with all six jumpers.
After a strong second jump to 139.5 m, the World Cup third Eisenbichler advanced far ahead (284.3) and caught Friday (284.0), who had already lost his chance to reach the podium in the first round. Leyhe (281,1) claimed ninth place after jump one.
Late starter Pius Paschke, who had competed his first team jumping in the World Cup on Saturday at the age of 27, scored 14 (269.5) points again. Karl Geiger slipped from mid-term place ten to 18th place (260.8).
Double World Champion Stefan Kraft (Austria), who had improved the ski jump record to 147.5 m on Saturday, did not get past 13th place in the singles after a messed up first jump. Also winner of the Four Hills Tournament Kamil Stoch (Poland) in 20th place. and his predecessor Peter Prevc (Slovenia) as 23. disappointed.
SID cl jl